


A Con Artist and a Firehawk Walk Into a Bar

by lucyrne (theungenue)



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Drunkenness, F/F, Flirting, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 13:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15663945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theungenue/pseuds/lucyrne
Summary: A friendly conversation between vault hunters in a bar snowballs into a weird mini-adventure. Fiona/Lilith





	A Con Artist and a Firehawk Walk Into a Bar

**Author's Note:**

> me: this will be a 1k drabble about two characters getting drunk in a bar!
> 
> also me: actually its a character study about being mythologized as a hero without really wanting to be and standing on the precipice between being an unknown and becoming a legend
> 
> This fic was inspired by the fact that Fiona and Lilith have/had similar hair. That's the ship. There it is. Please enjoy.

“Not to be weird, but I like your hair.”

Fiona, hunched over a bar with a tin cup of something foul in her hand, turned around with a sneer already on her lips. Her prepared sarcastic comment got stuck against her teeth when she saw who had spoken to her--a slight redhead with golden eyes and light blue tattoos that swirled up her arm, over her shoulder, and down her cleavage. 

The redhead’s hair was a similar asymmetrical cut, but instead of letting her sidebangs hang long against her cheek, she styled her hair into swooping spikes. It reminded Fiona of the tail end of a comet, or the jagged edge of a chemical fire.

“Really?” Fiona asked. Her eyes searched the redhead’s face. Hot women didn’t hit on her often, and when they did, it was usually to further some ulterior motive. 

The redhead eased herself onto the barstool beside Fiona. “Yeah, I used to wear it like that too. You’ve even got the hair streak.”

Fiona ran her fingers over the red stripe in her hair. “Same streak?”

“Same streak!” the redhead said, pointing to her platinum tips.

“Why’d you abandon a haircut that is so obviously cool and attractive?”

The redhead shrugged. “Looted a bunker and found a lifetime’s supply of expensive hair gel. Normally not my thing, but it was free and I needed some change. Plus I look awesome.”

“So it worked out.”

“It worked out.” The redhead leaned on the bar and took a long, pensive sip of her drink. Fiona didn’t notice the woman order a drink, and she didn’t remember her approaching the bar with it either. Somehow, this redhead was able to move without being noticed. She had even snuck up on Fiona. That was the sort of talent that caught a con artist’s attention. 

“My name’s Lilith,” she said. “The Firehawk.” 

Fiona whistled. The name rang a bell, though she couldn’t put her finger on which one. “Now that’s a fancy title. I’m Fiona. Just Fiona.“ 

Lilith smirked. “Well ‘Just Fiona,’ I don’t have a wallet for you to steal, so you can get your hands out of my pockets.” 

With a stunned smile, Fiona clasped her hands and rested them on the bar, in plain view. The thing about sticky fingers is that sometimes they acted of their own accord. Hey, she was used to helping herself to whatever was in a stranger’s pockets and getting away with it. What Fiona wasn’t accustomed to was being called out for it, and by someone who didn’t actually care. 

Lilith’s face was angular and her smile askew, but Fiona didn’t sense any guile in them. The woman just struck up a random conversation in the dingiest, most craven drinking establishment within 50 klicks, and yet she appeared completely at ease. _Like a predator,_ Fiona realized. _There’s no reason to be on your guard if you’re already at the top of the food chain._

“Where’d your drink come from if you have no money?” Fiona asked. Lilith, tracing her finger around the rim of her cup, only shrugged. “Huh. So what do you do, exactly?”

“Vault hunter-slash-bandit-slash-badass,” Lilith said. “You?”

Fiona raised her scarred eyebrow at the mention of vault hunting. That could explain the attitude. She had yet to meet a vault hunter that couldn’t handle a gun, or walk into a enemy base and come out the sole survivor. If she had to guess, Fiona would say Lilith was a little older than she was, a little more experienced in battle, and a lot more dangerous. 

“I’m a storyteller,” Fiona answered. As a rule, con artists didn’t really admit to being con artists. Plus it was better to base a lie off of something true. She learned that one when she tried to pass herself off as an archaeologist. “Slash-badass,” she added, to give herself some of her own mysterious allure. 

Something in Lilith’s yellow eyes lit up until they almost glowed. “Storyteller? What kind of stories do you tell?”

Fiona leaned forward as if to tell a secret. “Honestly, I just have the one.”

Storytelling was just a longer word for lying. Selective truth-telling, if you will. It was a pretty elementary skill as far as cons went, but having an actual adventure under her belt to share made it a lot easier. Especially since there was no one around to outright challenge her claims. 

For two people who had no money of their own to spend on alcohol, they managed to get quite drunk. It wasn’t Fiona’s intention, but there was something gratifying about making someone laugh, gasp, and awe at all the right times. When it came to instant feedback, Lilith was the perfect audience. She howled with laughter when Fiona and Sasha stole Athena’s shield, gasped during Felix’s betrayal, and damn-near cried at Scooter’s death. 

Lilith became especially animated during the Helios portion of the story, specifically when it appeared that Rhys had betrayed the group for Handsome Jack’s computer doppleganger. She slammed her fist on the bar with enough force that Fiona thought it might crack. 

Drunk on sour liquor and her own performance, Fiona allowed her facts and her fiction to mix and combine. What did it matter? A little artistic license never hurt anyone.

“I love how you took out that guy’s eye,” Lilith said. “What’s his name...Rhys? Just ripped the whole thing out and crushed fake-o Handsome Jack with your bare hands. Cut off his whole arm for good measure. That’s friggin’ hardcore. And then after all that, he _thanked_ you for it.”

Fiona nodded sagely. “It was a little pathetic, seeing Rhys weep from pure gratitude when he had only one functioning tear duct. But heroism doesn’t pay as well as it should, and I’ll take what I can get.”

“Yes!” Lilith said, gesturing towards Fiona with her half-empty cup. “Heroism doesn’t pay _shit._ It’s just a euphemism for being homeless and unemployed.”

“It’s a racket, is what it is!” 

Lilith shotgunned what was left of her drink and threw the cup down on the bar, shuddering from the awful taste. When she opened her eyes, her hand snatched Fiona’s. “Let me show you something wild,” she said. “Yo, bartender dude. Can I have my guns back now?”

It was dusk when they left the bar together, but Lilith didn’t say where they were going. She just led Fiona along, her tattooed, pale hand in Fiona’s light brown one. Fiona wasn’t really the hand-holding kind, and she guessed Lilith wasn’t either, but tonight felt different. Electric. She didn’t remember the last time she threw caution to the wind with so much abandon, no con on the horizon, and she didn’t want to let it go. Not yet. Even if it was probably a bad idea. 

Of course, a con artist never really stops making visual deductions. Lilith had collected two SMGs and a pricey shotgun from the bartender before they left, strapping them to her back and shoulders like a seasoned pro. Fiona found herself wondering once again what kind of threat Lilith might be, and whether or not taking a cute girl’s hand would spell her doom or something else. 

As they neared the outpost border, hand in hand, Fiona took off her hat and plopped it over Lilith’s head. It was too big, flattening Lilith’s gravity-defying hair and covering her eyes. She laughed and tipped front back with her finger. Her eyes flashed gold in the dark as she tossed the hat back to Fiona.

“So what’s the plan?” Fiona asked. “You can’t surprise me, I’m Pandoran. I’ve seen everything.”

“Word.” Lilith looked at her through the corner of her eye, and then squeezed Fiona’s hand. “Don’t know many people who were actually born here. I’m actually from Dionysus.” 

Fiona clutched her bosom with faux-reverence. “You came from a fancy planet? Excuse me, I didn’t realize I was speaking to high society.”

“It wasn’t that fancy. Okay, maybe by Pandoran standards, but it wasn’t _better_. People hurt and take advantage of you there just as easy as they do it here. They’re just less violent about it.”

“Huh. So people suck on every world.”

“People suck on every world.”

Something about that simple sentence gave Fiona immense comfort. Like maybe Pandora and the people who lived here weren’t inherently evil, or at least _more_ evil than the rest of the universe. Maybe there was still hope for them, too. 

They walked together onto the open desert, stumbling into each other and laughing as they tripped over their own feet. Alcohol stilting their movement, the two climbed a short crag of rock and sat at the top. Lilith instructed Fiona in no uncertain terms to stay on the ridge and not move. Fiona complied, because despite her suspicious nature, she was kind of in the mood to play some weird games with a hot redhead tonight. And tipsy. Mostly that.

Lilith slid down the other side of the ridge. Now twenty to thirty feet below Fiona, she looked up and waved. As she raised her hand, Lilith’s entire body became translucent, and then disappeared altogether. 

Fiona’s immediate thought was that she was tripping absolute balls. Then she saw Lilith reappear, burning wings flaring from her shoulder blades and a wave of fire rolling off her body, and Fiona realized that she actually wasn’t high enough. 

Lilith did her vanishing-then-explode act a couple more times, disappearing into the ether at one moment and then reappearing a long distance away, a human inferno. Each time, Fiona tried harder to remember what she exactly she drank. 

She didn’t know exactly what to say when Lilith sauntered back up the ridge. “Glowing tattoos. Wings made of actual flame. Those are, um--” Fiona put both thumbs up. “--pretty cool. Completely unexpected. But pretty cool. Wow.”

Lilith rubs her neck, swaying a little to the side. “Yeah, well, Firehawk isn’t a name I made up for fun.”

“Oh.” Something clicked in Fiona’s brain, and the color immediately drained from her face. “OH. You’re _that_ Firehawk. The one who helped take down Handsome Jack. The one who runs the Crimson Raiders. The one with her own actual cult.”

Lilith cringed, though Fiona wasn’t exactly sure which statement she was wincing at. “Yeah, that’s all me.”

The bottom of Fiona’s stomach dropped to the dirt. She had spent hours regaling a story Lilith had already lived several times over. She was among the first to go after Hyperion. She battled the _real_ Handsome Jack. She knew Scooter and all the other vault hunters, and fought beside them too. Compared to Lilith, FIona’s exploits were just...average. 

In her shock, Fiona leaned on the one con artist strategy that never failed her--deflection. 

“What the hell is a hero like you doing in this dump?” she asked. Fiona clapped her hands together. “Lemme guess. Another corporation wants to set up shop on this planet now that Hyperion is gone, and you want to stop them? Or that bar is a front for a new syndicate of organized banditry? Or there’s vault around here, and you’re waiting for your team to--” 

“I’m literally here to just hang out,” Lilith said, now defensive and weary. This powerful, supernatural being looked very small against the sweeping desert. “Even heroes like to go out and meet people and get shitfaced every once in awhile. Nothing wrong with that. Not that I’m a hero. I’ve just done a lot of cool shit.”

“What’s the difference?” 

Lilith’s expression slipped, and for the first time that night Fiona glimpsed some real vulnerability beneath the cocky smirk. “Nobody dies if you’re a hero,” she said. “Nobody innocent, anyway.” 

“Oh.” Fiona’s gaze drifted to the ground. “Guess that means I’m not much of a hero either.”

Lilith clasped a hand on Fiona’s shoulder, mask back in place. “You, me, and the rest of this friggin’ planet. Come on. There’s more flame wings where those came from.” 

They spent the next hours shooting things with various weapons, setting other things on fire, and being generally destructive to Mother Pandora. A couple skags erupted from a nearby nest, and Lilith cackled as they shot them down together and set their corpses aflame. It was the kind of amazing, pointless fun that Fiona hadn’t experienced in a long time. It was probably the same for Lilith, too. 

Fiona kept wondering why Lilith would go through the trouble of showing off her crazy weird powers if she _didn’t_ want to get recognized as Pandora’s fairweather fire goddess. If she really wanted to hang out incognito with a civilian she met at a bar, she could’ve kept the interdimensional fireshow to herself. 

Unless Lilith didn’t think of this as revealing herself to a random civilian, but to an equal. A vault hunter. 

As good as she was at deceit, Fiona couldn’t lie to herself that she liked that idea. 

When their buzzess faded into light headaches, they packed up their firearms to split ways., perhaps for good. “Thanks for the mini-adventure. It’s way more chill hearing about legends than being one,” Lilith said, offering her hand for a fist bump. “Listen, my crew and I could use a storyteller. Or whatever it is you do. If you’re in between gigs.”

Fiona was caught off guard enough to openly gape. Her, hang out with Lilith and her crew? Going on vault hunter adventures, sharing daring exploits, and maybe finding treasure? It was the kind of life she dreamed of as a kid, the life she got a taste of while chasing down the Vault of the Traveler with Sasha and Rhys. 

But one thing did give Fiona pause. Lilith the Firehawk wanted to take a break from it all, only to find that who she was wasn’t something she could take off for a spell. Fiona was a nobody. She could become anything she wanted with a costume change and a fake name. 

There were a few pros to being a con artist after all. 

Fiona lightly bumped Lilith’s fist. “I’ll keep that in mind. Maybe next time we meet, I’ll have fancy hair, too.”

Lilith shot Fiona a look that smouldered as brightly as her flaming wings. “Dude, you keep saying I’m fancy. I’m beginning to wonder what you really mean by that.” 

They finally parted ways in front of the bar where they met. 

As she walked away, Lilith called over her shoulder, “Ever come to Sanctuary, hit me up, alright?” 

Fiona had already mentally planned how and when she could visit Sanctuary, but she had a reputation to uphold. She couldn’t run off towards the sunrise after every hero with awesome hair and bedroom eyes. They’d meet again on equal terms, just as they met the first time. 

And there was no doubt they would meet again. Fiona had a brand spanking new story to tell, and like all seasoned story tellers, she had a sense that it wasn’t over yet. 


End file.
